Chapter 29

Chapter twenty nine creates a depressing, terrifying, and somber tone through the imagery of a storm. Steinbeck switches to the general narrative again for this chapter. In doing so, the narrator talks of how winter came to California and with it came heavy rains and driving storms. "Over the high coast mountains and over the valleys the gray clouds marched in from the ocean. The wind blew fiercely and silently, high in the air, and it swished in the brush, and it roared in the forests. The clouds came in brokenly, in puffs, in folds, in gray crags; and they piled in together and settled low over the west. And then the wind stopped and left the clouds deep and solid. The rain began with gusty showers, pauses and down pours; and then gradually it settled to a single tempo, small drops and a steady beat, rain that was gray to see through, rain that cut midday light to evening."

The migrant families are soaked through from the driving rain, and are helpless as they are not going to get any work for some time. Everything is wet, dreary, and somber: the migrant families, their stuff, the situation. "The people sat in wet clothes. They set up boxes and put planks on the boxes. Then, day and night, they sat on the planks… And the people waded away, carrying their wet blankets in their arms… Then some went to the relief offices, and they came sadly back to their own people. They's rules—you got to be here a year before you can git relief. They say the gov'ment is gonna help. They don' know when. And gradually the greatest terror of all came along. They ain't gonna be no kinda work for three months."

The storms and the driving rain of California wipes away any shreds of hope that the families were hanging onto. As they were barely hanging on, they swept away, and many of them felt the pressures of terrible defeat. Yet, in this, many turned to rage, and this rage kept them going on along with their families. "And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right—the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath."